Pro Athletes Refuse To Play In Solidarity With Racial Justice Protests, KPBS Event: Racism In Armed Forces, Your COVID-19 Questions Answered And Summer Music Series

Speaker 1: 00:00 A sports wide boycott targets, racial injustice Speaker 2: 00:04 You're seen as unity, and that we need something to happen. We can't just wear the shirts, take the knees. We need to start seeing action. Speaker 1: 00:12 I'm Mark Sauer with Maureen Kavanaugh. This is KPBS midday edition. An examination of racism in the military. Speaker 2: 00:28 The percent of the enlisted in the Navy are African Americans, but only 9% of the officers. Speaker 1: 00:34 Then at the very highest ranked, the three and four star, Speaker 2: 00:38 There are no African Americans at all. Speaker 1: 00:41 And an infectious disease specialist answers COVID-19 questions. Plus our summer music series continues with the San Diego band, the sacred souls that's ahead on mid day edition our top story today, a Swift and startling reaction by professional athletes who boycotted some basketball, baseball, and soccer games. Following the police shooting of a black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, it started when the Milwaukee box whose home arena is an hour away from Kenosha. Refuse to leave their dressing room for an NBA playoff game in Florida against the Orlando magic baseballs, Milwaukee brewers, soon followed suit. The Seattle Mariners voted to cancel their game in San Diego against the Padres. Then the Dodgers canceled against the giants and LA women players for the w NBA Washington mystics appeared for their schedule game with t-shirts sparing seven red bullet holes printed on the back and honor of Jacob Blake. He's the 29 year old Kenosha man gravely wounded in Sunday's police shooting. Meantime, the NBA says it's playoff games will resume today. Joining me to discuss this as pastor Greg Hendricks of the rock church East County. Who's also a former pro basketball player and assistant coach in the NBA. Welcome to midday edition. Thanks for having me Mark. Well, what do you make of this most recent wave of activism by professional athletes against racial injustice and police violence? Speaker 2: 02:14 Uh, you know, it's, I think that what you're saying has been, you know, brewing over, you know, months and months and months of things that have been going on prior to mr. Blake being shot. The fact that the matter that these athletes who were on, on the major stage, uh, global platforms, they're using their voice to say, Hey, we need to see some change here. Our, our, our situation and our country is not right. Um, we need to see some reform, um, things need to be corrected and we're willing to stop what we're doing, which is, you know, making a livelihood, bringing entertainment to, to fans all around the world. We're really to stop what we're doing and to let people know that you need to be engaged in this issue right here, because this is a problem. Not only does it impact just the common everyday person who are fans of the game or who may be watching the game, but it impacts us who are playing the game. Speaker 1: 03:07 No, as a black athlete and coach, what's been your experience with racism. Speaker 2: 03:12 Uh, you know, I've had, uh, incidences that have happened from being looked over for positions. I've seen it on different levels, um, some more extreme than others. Um, but what I, what I have noticed is the fact of the matter is it's it, how you deal with it really, really, uh, can dictate, um, your whole experience on what that looks like granted. Um, that's not in every single case, but, um, in the cases that have been, uh, you know, that I have been involved in, um, how I dealt with them and I, and to be very honest with, sometimes I've lashed back sometimes I've, you know, just flew off the cuff. There's other times where I've handled it, um, a different way and the outcome was different, but it definitely does exist, um, all the way to the highest levels, no Speaker 1: 03:59 Activism and sports is not new. Some examples include Muhammad Ali taking a stance in the Vietnam war, the famous black power protests by American track athletes at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico city. More recently, the knee taken during the national Anthem by NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, who's become an icon in today's movement. Does this moment feel different to you though? Are you surprised by the spontaneity of these teams and the players the yesterday who got involved? Speaker 2: 04:26 No, it doesn't surprise me because a lot of the players were really struggling with coming to play in that bubble initially. And it wasn't because they weren't in shape or they didn't want to play. It was the fact that they were really heartbroken by all these issues that, uh, the community was facing in regards to Georgia, Florida, and Brianna Taylor. And, and now you have mr. Blake, the heart to really prime their heart to come and compete at the highest level for all these athletes, uh, was something that they had to figure out not to mention you have COVID-19. And what does that look like? So to see the response, now, I'm very proud of how all of the athletes have United together across all the sports and say, Hey, this, this is not right. It's just inhumane. No matter what the color of your skin is just inhumane, that a person would be treated like this, or someone has to die like this. But what you're seeing is unity, and that we need something to happen. We can't just wear the shirts, take the knees. We need to start seeing action. Speaker 1: 05:32 I want to follow up a little bit with that. I want to play a little bit of what NBA superstar, LeBron James said yesterday. Let's, let's hear that Speaker 2: 05:40 We are scared. It's like people in America like man, black women, black kids, we are terrified. Cause you don't know, you have no idea how that cop, that day left the house, wrong side of the bed, or maybe you just left the house and that's the day it's going to be the influence. That's what it feels like. That's what it feels like. Speaker 1: 06:07 Now does the fact that superstars like LeBron James leading this protest, does that make it easier for other players to join in solidarity? Speaker 2: 06:15 When you have someone as prominent with the powerful voice, like a LeBron James and stating, this is how he's feeling, this is how he believes the culture is feeling. That's I think that's really powerful. And so I applaud him in his effort. Um, and I can see where he's coming from it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm a black male and I go for runs in the morning and I can't sit here and lie to you and tell you that I'm not looking over my shoulder when I'm going for a run in my neighborhood. You know? And I don't know if it's going to be a person. I don't know if it's going to be a police officer and please hear my heart. I'm not saying any of the police, not all police officers are bad. So LeBron's point, you don't know where the police officer may be at that day. Speaker 2: 06:58 And I think what would help is not to defunding the police is not the right thing to do. What we can do though, is get them real good, help and help so that when they do wake up or if they're having struggles with problems or something's going on in their life, that they have resources that can serve the police and strengthen them. If they are in a situation that would cause them to make a bad decision in a very, very hostile situation, black people, young kids, people of color, uh, Asian, Mexican, nobody wants to, nobody wants to walk around and fear from someone who is legally there to protect someone. No one wants to walk around like that. No one wants to have that feeling. But the fact of the matter is you look at all these strings of these things from George Florida, to Brianna Taylor, to mr. Blake and, and Amar, you know, all these things, you look at these different cases and scenarios and people don't have any narrative, but what they're seeing on, on television and it's scary, you know, it really is scary. And it's heartbreaking. Speaker 1: 08:06 Finally, I wanted to come back to the bottom line question here. What's the significance of the sports world coming together like this? Do you think this boycott will lead to change? Speaker 2: 08:15 I think it will definitely push the needle towards change. I honestly believe that people Revere sports figures, they're there they're modern day heroes to a lot of people and sports figures have access to resources that maybe the common person may not have. And that includes the owners as well. They have access to people that know how to change. The laws, know how to talk to the right people. And if the owners and the athletes are all on the same page, trying to seek healthy change to prevent something like this from happening again, in order for us to really seek change, we have to really be band United. And that's from the owner all the way down. Speaker 3: 08:56 So to see this right here, I think will push the needle a lot faster and a lot stronger towards change and, and to help really right. What change should look like, how it should be healthy long term, um, not only for, uh, the African American community, but for communities in general, as well as police officers. You know what that looks like. So I definitely believe them using their voice across all sports in this moment can push the needle towards change. I've been speaking with pastor Greg Hendricks of the rock church, East County, and he's a former professional basketball player, an NBA assistant coach. Thanks very much for joining us. Thank you, Mark. Speaker 4: 09:43 As we just heard, America is again confronting the aftermath of a police shooting of a black man. This time seven shots fired into the back of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, ever since the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police officers, this summer, many of America's police forces, schools, businesses, churches, and other organizations have been reevaluating their structures in an effort to confront and root out systemic racism. And it seems the U S military is engaged in that reckoning as well. Joining me is KPBS, military and veterans reporters. Steve wall should to give us a preview of two KPBS specials, evaluating systemic racism in the military. The first one takes place today. And Steve, welcome to the program. I'm Maureen now racism in the U S military has a long history, but even after overt segregation was abolished, the services knew they were dealing with ingrained racial bias. How have they tried to root that out in the past? Speaker 3: 10:47 Well, yes, this is not the first time that the U S military has looked at racial bias. There, there are a couple of different commissions out there right now. The DOD, the Pentagon is looking at racial bias and that each one of the surfaces are also looking at racial bias, including the Navy, which has something called the one that Navy taskforce. But as, but you're completely right, this is not the first time you can go all the way back to 1948 when president Truman desegregated the military officially, which was well before the modern civil rights movement of the 1950s and sixties. Um, they have had several runs at this, including in the 1970s, early 1970s, Admiral Zumewalts. Uh, the CNO from the time, uh, came up with a whole range of changes to try to make the Navy more inclusive. And he had, uh, a tremendous amount of backlash. So yes, this is not the, uh, the first time the Navy has looked at these issues and they've been collecting data on some of these topic areas for years Speaker 4: 11:49 Now in this most recent iteration of the effort to confront racial bias. What reforms, if any, have been put into place? Speaker 3: 11:59 Well, right now they are still looking at them. The Navy has a very ambitious deadline. They set up their task force in July and there, they expect to have a report due by December. And they're not just looking at, uh, at racial bias. They're looking at bias in regards to gender, even religion, even age. So they have an incredibly large mandate. Some of the things that have come up so far, the DOD has a, the department of defense has looked at, uh, uh, banning photographs. When people come up for promotions that you just simply won't have a photograph, uh, for people to look at hoping that sort of weeds out some of those systemic prejudice. One of the reasons why you would want to do that is the Navy while they almost close to 20% of the enlisted are, uh, are, uh, in the Navy are African Americans, but only 9% of the officers. And then at the very highest ranks, the three and four star admirals, there are no African-Americans at all. Speaker 4: 12:57 Is that one of the major ways that racial bias is exhibited in the military in the fact that there are so few, uh, officers and judges and so forth who were promoted to higher rank, Speaker 3: 13:09 You hit upon another thing that another major issue he has criminal justice. And there are no African-American judges in the Navy at this point. Um, and we know that there, the, uh, department of defense and the general accounting office have looked at some of the racial biases and found that, um, there are several areas where African Americans seem to be getting into the system far earlier and far more often than anyone else in, in the military though, when it actually comes down to a court martial, they're actually not convicted at any higher rate than, than anyone else suggesting that maybe, uh, people are filtering them into the justice system, rather than maybe just taking them aside and trying to talk. These, these things out Speaker 4: 13:52 KPBS is presenting to special programs about racism in the military today's program focuses on racial bias and Steve, your guests have a wide range of experience. Can you give us an idea who will be on the panel? Speaker 3: 14:07 So we have Don Christensen, who is the president of protecting our defenders. They sued the military to get some of his data on, uh, on the criminal and military criminal justice system. So he's got some of the real facts here, Stefan Williams, he runs a leadership training firm in Melbourne, Florida. He's a retired Marine who works with the department of defense to facilitate these conversations, the Navy and the other services have talked about wanting to have these conversations, you know, at the deck plate level, people should start talking about their, their biases. Well, how do you do that? Stefan Williams is an actual expert in how you do that. And so, and we'll also be kind of reaching out to folks in the audience to try to get us, you know, see if they want to contribute as well. We also have Harris who is with the national Naval officers association, which was a group formed back in the 1970s to try to create more diversity in the Navy. Speaker 3: 15:01 And he's also working with the one Navy task force. We also have a Michael Johnson who is with the, uh, the Montford point Marine association. This is a, uh, this is a group that formed in the wake of world war two when Marines first allowed African Americans into the service. They were segregated in these units. And then after the war, they were, uh, they were not as welcomed in some of the main line veterans organizations. So they formed the Munford point of Marines association to try to, uh, to try to give a place for African Americans to share their veteran experience. And we'll talk a little bit about like what role the veteran community plays in, in these issues. Speaker 4: 15:44 Now, you mentioned, you're hoping to hear from veterans and members of the military who will participate remotely in this meeting, how will that work? Speaker 3: 15:55 Well, you know, this is the age we're living in. We are initially trying to do these as live events. We have flown people in from around the country and rented the hall, but now we're trying to do all these things, uh, post pandemic, uh, via zoom. So people can log on and look at the panel, but also be able to ask questions. And we've got kind of a tight timeframe here of one hour, but we're hoping to bring on a couple of vets to share their stories as well. So yes, it should be pretty as interactive as we can make it. Speaker 4: 16:24 What will the second of these special programs focus on? Speaker 3: 16:28 The second one is going to focus specifically on white supremacy and rooting out white supremacy in the, uh, the U S military. We didn't want to combine these two groups. You know, the one that we felt that racial bias deserved its own. And then we're looking at, um, the rise of some of these new hate groups and how it went, why they are targeting the U S military and military service and what the military is doing and could be doing to root them out. Speaker 4: 16:56 And that is a week from today. The second program Speaker 3: 16:59 That's next Thursday, Speaker 4: 17:01 I did take part in the KPBS special on racial bias in the military. You can sign up at kpbs.org/events until four o'clock this afternoon. And the special begins at six. Before we go. There is news. Now that the fire aboard the USS Bonam Rashard at Naval base, San Diego last month was deliberately set. What do we know about that? Speaker 3: 17:25 We still know very little, this broke late yesterday, and I was able to confirm that yes, uh, Naval NCI S was, uh, is looking at arson now from this July 12th fire. And they've questioned at least one sailor. Um, you know, this just so people remember this fire happened, it burned for more than four days pier side at 32nd street. Uh, at the time Speaker 5: 17:50 The CNO came out and said that this, uh, the ship may be a total loss because of the extensive damage talked about how there had been multiple explosions, including one that has heard as far as 13 miles away. Now they're looking at whether or not this might be arson, though, at this point, you have to caution, no charges have been filed, but this is where the investigation seems to be heading Speaker 4: 18:12 Well. I thank you so much. And good luck tonight, Steve, with your program. I've been speaking with KPBS, military reporter, Steve Walsh. Thanks. Speaker 5: 18:20 Thanks Maureen. Speaker 5: 18:28 Hi Mark Sauer with Maureen Kavanaugh and you're listening to KPBS mid day edition. As much as COVID-19 has been written about discussed and has changed our daily lives over the last six months, there are still many unanswered questions about the pandemic, and there's still a lot of confusion about what are the best practices and keeping ourselves and our loved ones, safe KPBS health reporter, Teran mento gathered inquiries from our listeners, viewers and online audience and ask local infectious disease specialists. Dr. Christian Ramers for some answers, dr. Ramers is one of the leaders within the local medical community, responding to COVID-19 here's that interview Speaker 4: 19:08 Jumping right into it. Andrew Blom of point Loma has the first question for you. Speaker 5: 19:12 It seems like San Diego kind of plus, or minus is just been hovering around 200, 300 cases. And my question is, does that mean we have a low level of COVID and the risk is not so great or are we doing absolutely everything we can and just hanging on by our fingernails to keep case levels at that level and therefore, you know, letting up at all, you know, we'll make those cases go back up again. I think the first thing we should keep in mind is that the CDC estimates that we're probably only diagnosing 10 to 20% of the actual cases out there. So that two to 300 may actually represent just the tip of the iceberg of those that may be asymptomatic but positive. And so I think two to 300 is actually kind of a big number. Uh, other parts of the world and other other countries are seeing much, much lower numbers and having much stricter lockdowns with lower numbers than us. Speaker 5: 20:03 But of course, it's all relative. If we go just to our North to Los Angeles, we're talking more like thousands of cases. So San Diego I think is sort of somewhat in the middle. And I think that some of the measures that we've been taking really shouldn't change, whether we see 200 or 500, they shouldn't be the same in terms of keeping your distance and wearing masks. And I'm trying to reduce the transmission, keep in mind that if those 200 people don't self isolate, they could probably pass onto another 200 and then you just get a chain reaction and perpetuation of the epidemic. So what we really want to see is a lot less than that down to just sort of single numbers. You look at places like New York city and New York state, they're getting down to extremely low numbers, which actually opens up the whole ability to open up society again and start schools and types of things, huh? Speaker 6: 20:48 All who lives in East County says he's been seeing many people at the beach over the last several months, almost none of them wearing masks or social distancing, but he says there doesn't seem to be a significant increase in cases associated with that activity. And he's wondering if the County is tracking outbreaks at beaches, if you're aware of that and why this behavior may not be resulting in a lot of COVID cases. Speaker 5: 21:09 So being outside is so much better than being inside. This is, this is something we've learned kind of halfway through the epidemic. There was a study that modeled this out and it showed that you were 19 times less likely to be infected with COBIT with the same interaction, uh, outdoors compared to indoors. If you read the guidelines, wearing masks really is not mandatory. If you are outside and able to keep your distance more than six feet from somebody, for example, there's a lot of questions about exercising outdoors. And do you need to wear a mask when you're running or biking? And the answer is, if you can keep your distance and you're outdoors, you actually do not need a mask in that situation. So it really disturbs people a lot to see a beach full of people without masking, but if they are staying away from each other, there is a very, very low likelihood of transmission. Speaker 5: 21:53 So to Paul's question, seeing people outdoors, as long as they're keeping their distance, you can be with your household members. If you're considered sort of part of one group in one bubble, um, you know, you don't have to separate from those people, but keeping six feet away from everybody else, that's where masks become less necessary, where masks are absolutely necessary as in any indoor situation or any situation where you have to be closer than six feet to somebody. So I think what we're seeing in terms of the County case rates is a combination of things. People are kind of getting the idea that being outdoors is better than being indoors. And we are seeing increased rates of mask wearing in people that are indoors, especially in businesses where it's required. I don't believe that County is tracking beach or outdoor related outbreaks. Cause it's just kind of harder to do. They're more classifying things by restaurant bar, haircutting, place, spa business, and those types of things. Speaker 6: 22:41 Can you clarify what we know about how the virus spreads that makes it safer to be outside without a mask than indoors? Because we keep hearing, you know, back and forth over it spreads with only air droplets. Some people say it spreads airborne. So clarify what we know. Speaker 5: 22:57 Yeah. So there's been some reports about more distant airborne spread. These are sort of scientific experiments where they do these idealized conditions and say, well, if somebody brings out a tiny little particle and you're more than six feet away, could you get infected? So there's been a little bit more of an acceptance in the scientific literature that airborne bread is more active in an active way of spreading. But I think most of us believe that by and large it's small droplets, which are generally going to fall to the ground within about six feet. That's where that recommendation comes from. But in reality, it's probably a mix and the most important factors here are just proximity and time. Actually, we don't think about it that much, but if you're in a closed room within six feet from somebody for two hours, that's a massive exposure compared to 10 minutes outdoors. Speaker 5: 23:43 And we think about outdoors, there's wind, there's this just massive dilution effect where the wind can just move particles all over the place. Like I said, much, much less risky to be outdoors, but again, small droplets and a little bit of airborne transmission. I personally feel like if this was a primarily airborne related transmitted virus, we would see a whole lot more cases than we're seeing. So while that might be possible to transmit airborne beyond six feet, I don't think it's a major route. That's contributing a lot of debate about this. It's hard to prove one way or the other, but just think about this in a household contact situation where one member of the household is infected. The transmission rate to other household members is only about 20 to maybe 30% in the literature. So I think really it is that proximity being within six feet and time of contact between the individual, which tells me that it's mainly those respiratory droplets, Speaker 6: 24:34 Speaking of being outdoors and it's minimizing the risk, but saying that you said that it's still possible. We have a 76 year old listener who has a granddaughter that lives with her and the granddaughter contracted COVID at the beach while hanging out with friends, the group of a all got COVID, but weren't hospitalized. And here she is asking you a question. Speaker 7: 24:52 Uh, my name is Maria [inaudible]. I live in [inaudible] and my question is, could you get copied again up one time, Speaker 5: 25:02 This is a hot topic right now, you know, early on when we had these massive outbreaks in New York city and in Europe, we just were not seeing re-infection as an entity. There were so many millions of infections in these places and reinfection was just not being observed. And so most people thought that there was at least some immunity from those that have been infected. And we think at least it's probably about 90 days that you have some protection. Of course, all human beings are different and we're going to have different immune responses to the virus. Some people will develop a very robust response with what are called neutralizing antibodies and they're just protected. They're going to be fine. It's other people, especially if they have an immunocompromised conditions or take chronic steroid medicines may not develop as strong of an immune response and people that have asymptomatic infection may develop a little bit of a weaker response. Speaker 5: 25:50 So there's a little uncertainty around how long we are protected for, but what is sure now, just in the last two to three days is there's a report from Hong Kong and then two more reports from Europe. So that's a total of three cases that have been confirmed that are definitely re infections. Now I think that the details of the Hong Kong case are just being released this morning. So I haven't studied it in detail, but my understanding is that the reinfection was a very, very mild re-infection. In fact, I think the individual was asymptomatic, which means that reinfection though it may theoretically occur. It probably does not occur within the first three months or so after being exposed in the beginning. And it looks like it might actually be a milder version if you get re-exposed. This is very, very important for us to study because it may be that the vaccine provides relatively temporary immunity, uh, with our, our long history of Corona viruses, which cause many common viruses immunity tends to be on that sort of months to maybe a year or two years maximum in terms of immunity. So in that respect, reinfection is possible and it probably is going to be mild from, from what we're seeing so far. Speaker 6: 26:56 So here's another one for you. Hi, dr. Ramers. My name is Monica Stapleton and I live in Solana beach. I have three children and I'm wondering what your opinion is about the vaccines and how likely are you to get a vaccine or to give one to your children? Speaker 5: 27:13 Uh, Monica. So I, as an infectious disease doctor who has literally seen people die of vaccine preventable diseases and have followed the public health benefit of these interventions, I'm very, pro-vaccine just, I'm just going to get that out there. As a disclaimer, I took my family to Africa to work for several months and got everybody as vaccinated as possible, including my two year old son at the time. Uh, so how am I going to evaluate a vaccine? You know, we have a process in this country. Uh, that's been very well worked out with phase one, phase two and phase three studies, uh, where safety and efficacy are evaluated very rigorously and in a, in a double blinded placebo controlled way. And that process has not deviated. It may be going slightly faster than usual. And people may, may be concerned, especially because the name of the whole program is operation warp speed. Speaker 5: 28:01 But the process is the same in and of itself. A vaccine will have to show that it's at least 50% effective at reducing disease by COVID by 50% in order to be approved by the FDA. And I think we just have to have faith that it's going to be a transparent and open and non political process the way it has always been. I would like to cite the examples of China and Russia, which have actually gone ahead and approved vaccines without doing large phase three trials. That's not how we are doing things. We are doing things by our usual process, looking through the phase three data and ensuring that it's safe, not only in a couple hundred people or a couple thousand people, but these big trials are going to be 30,000 people. And we hope that that's a big enough number to catch any adverse effect or any side effect in terms of whether I'm going to get a vaccine myself. Speaker 5: 28:48 I would really like to, at this point, these are available only in research trials and the research trials tend to be focused on those that are highest risk. So it's actually easier to enroll in a vaccine trial right now, if you're over age 65, or if you have an underlying condition. And in my own case, I'm not really a prime research candidate at this point, but I'm certainly going to sign up, um, in terms of getting my kids vaccinated. Like I said, I'm very pro vaccine because looking at the numbers, I think our vaccine is really the best way for us to get out of this mess. You know, we think that you have to have herd immunity of about 60 to 70% of the population immune to COBIT at least over the short term, in order for us to really, uh, see the case numbers go down significantly. We're not going to get there by natural infection. If we did, we would have to just be wide open and there'd be a whole lot more death in our healthcare system would be overwhelmed. So supplementing natural immunity from infection with vaccine vaccination is really where we need Speaker 8: 29:42 To be. Not everybody needs to take it. And I've seen some surveys that, you know, 30 to 40% of the population is a little wary right now of getting vaccinated because things are moving so fast. But as long as 50, 60% of the population gets vaccinated, that will be from a public health perspective, a way to get out of the epidemic that was KPBS health reporter, Taron Mentos speaking with dr. Christian. Ramers Speaker 4: 30:12 The hundreds of wildfires, large and small burning in California have threatened people and communities, but what's been the effects on animals and their habitats experts say in some cases, not as bad as you might think with more on wildfire and wildlife here's KQBD reporter Sam hairnet, Speaker 8: 30:34 Steven Sargent recorded this morning, chorus at a Lake in Henrico park, located in the Diablo range back country, Southeast of San Jose. It's the second largest state park in California. And it's filled with wildlife like Tooley elk, black tail, Jack rabbits in Western blueberries. But the area was overrun by flames last week, about 40,000 acres burned half of the entire park. That makes was great. Pretty happy from the ecological standpoint, I think the plants animals are going to see a great benefit from this far ahead. A recall grey is a natural resource manager for California state parks. One of the things in state parks, where we're always trying to reintroduce fire because all the plant animal communities in California are fire adapted, take redwoods, big basin, state park, North of Santa Cruz burned, but scientists say most of the redwoods will be fine. They have flamers. Speaker 8: 31:31 If didn't bark super high canopies that avoid flame and they actually need some fire. It clears competitors and makes great Sequoia at seeds germinate. What about the rest of the wildlife in California? Let's start with the birds like this. Steller's Jay adult birds simply fly away, but that leaves baby birds to face the flames on their own, which brings us to Condors a critical endangered species in California. There are four baby Condors currently missing near big Sur, which may not mean tragedy. According to the Ventana wildlife society. Most baby Condors survive wildfires, especially if their nests happened to be located in redwoods. The big sir condo research facility. On the other hand, didn't survive. The whole thing burned and scientists are now seeking donations as for small mammals like squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks. They either run for large Rocky areas or burrow underground signs that say a squirrel then is a pretty safe place for most fires. Speaker 8: 32:30 Some are up to six feet. Deep elk and deer will take refuge in the street or try to outrun. Flame says gray from state parks. That is harder to do though in fires with high winds, the fires are moving faster in some situations, particularly when the fire is burning uphill for an animal to escape. So they may get trapped. Now, big predators are some of the worst off mountain lions can outrun most fires, but where do they go? John Kelly is a research scientist with the USDA geological survey. It's a lot of developed areas. That's a problem because there's no place for these animals. Go to humans have destroyed so much habitat in California. Over a quarter of the land. Mass is now used for agriculture. 95% of the redwoods were logs and estimated 90% of the wetlands destroyed. And the state is carved up by 394,000 miles of road. Speaker 8: 33:27 So when a fire destroys habitat, it's hard for predators to find food. In most metropolitan areas, they see plenty of examples of wildlife coming out of the wild land areas. Simply due to lack of food. Sometimes a mountain lion survives a wildfire only to die from starvation. This is the real danger that human caused climate change and urban and agricultural development has destroyed too much habitat for mountain lions and Condors and the like to survive another century with us in their neighborhood. And in the end, they won't be sad about it. We will for the California Fort I'm, Sam Barnett, Speaker 4: 34:15 This is KPBS mid day edition. I'm worrying Kavanaugh with Mark Sauer. Our summer music series continues with some sweet soul over rare grooves. San Diego ban the sacred souls have a sound that hearkens back to the sixties, Motown and Stax record era. The trio only started playing a year ago, but by their second show, they were signed to the funk and soul label. Depth tones records that brought a Sharon Jones and Amy Winehouse, the sacred souls don't just replicate. What's been done. They bring a fresh spin on the oldies or as the soul music revival has come to be known. Soul-Ties here's these sacred souls performing they're single. Can I call you? Rose Speaker 8: 35:00 Cannot call you [inaudible] Speaker 4: 35:33 Was the sacred souls performing. Can I call you Rose? These sacred souls are Alex Garcia drums, Alex. Welcome. Hey, thanks for having us South Samano on base Sao. Hello. How's it going? Pretty good. And Josh lane on vocals. Hi Josh. Hello. And they join us today and welcome to midday edition. All three of you. Let me start with you, Josh, where did you get the inspiration to write? Can I call you Rose Speaker 9: 36:03 Quick story on that was me, Alex and Sal would meet to record in Alex's garage. And so I looked back in his garage and his garage and he has these really big blankets you get from like the, you know what I'm talking about, like the big squat make blankets, and then there's this really big one with all these roses. And so just out of necessity for writing, I was like, okay, jump on. The roses. That'll help me. Okay. Rosa is a romantic, it flew out in a very organic way. Usually what I have to do is go back and like change words. And, but this time it just flew together. And I think it was a good thing that it happened that way though, because that was the first song, technically as a three piece that we wrote together, it was the first full song. Right. I like so, I mean, yeah, to me, I think it was really important for it to flow that way. Cause it just gave confidence in us as a band to be like, Oh, we have an energy together. Can we? Speaker 4: 36:56 No, your influences include indie folk and black soul. And I think most people are familiar with both of those genres, but there's also Chicano soul and Sal, what is Chicano? Speaker 10: 37:09 So Chicano soul is, it was kind of more underground. You know, there was a group like, uh, the Midnighters, um, Sonya Suda and the sun liners. They all had their, you know, classics that were huge and that Chicano community, you know, it all kind of went along with, you know, the low rider scene and it was kind of just its own little scene of like traditions and stuff like that. Speaker 4: 37:31 Is there a different kind of cultural field from Chicano soul and black soul? What is Chicano soul? Speaker 10: 37:38 I'd say like the music style is a little different, you know, the, the singing style is different. It's a little, it's a little more raw. It's mostly sounding pretty groggy production-wise and Speaker 4: 37:49 Chicano soul build sort of a bridge between that soul era and what came after it. Did it keep soul going Speaker 9: 37:58 Josh? I think it did because as so, kind of started to evolve in the eighties and nineties, more people were kind of going to R and D and listening to some of the rhythm and blues going on in that pop R and B. And I'm sure like my family, my, my grandma and grandpa, when we barbecue, they, they got their soldiers and they throw them out. But as a collective culture, I feel like Chicano soul took black soul and some of the Chicano soul artists that salad brought up the two of those things and just kept it moving forward. Speaker 4: 38:27 Let's hear another song from you guys. Uh, let's hear week for your life. Speaker 9: 38:35 [inaudible] Speaker 4: 39:04 That was the sacred souls performing week for your love with Jen scene, Benita's on backup vocals. How did you discover, how did you guys discover soul to begin with? I mean, you know, this is sort of your parents' music, so how did you get there? Speaker 9: 39:22 Well, I've always grown up with it. You know, I feel like soul and, and having a barbecue with the family is just something that just goes hand in hand. I grew up on like the Delfonics and Brentwood and stylistics kind of more of like the classics. But when I was like 18, 19, I discovered DAP tone and, um, big crown records, coal mine records, all these, all these labels that were bringing soul back to life. I'm putting out soul records, you know, and, uh, through them I started listening and some more deeper stuff. Uh, I met Sal, we started, uh, talking about this project and started getting into collecting records through Sal's dad. Who's also a big record collector. Speaker 4: 40:04 Alex, let me ask you, what was it like being signed to adaptogen records and one of your inspirations? Speaker 9: 40:11 Oh man, that's pretty much like the craziest feeling. You can imagine. It's, it's, I've always wanted to be a part of the label of depth tone and I've always respected them and what they stood for. So just being able to say that I'm working with them, we're working with my heroes and, and can consider them my friends. I feel like that's just a, it's a big honor and it feels like I accomplished something, you know, at my age already. I I'm really just fortunate to be a part of the label. Speaker 4: 40:41 Part of the sort of idea of music at this time, at the time that you guys are reaching back in the past and you're pulling it forward, like from Sam cook to Marvin Gaye musicians that used to use their voices for social change. And I'm thinking about your song, give us justice. And Josh, was it hard to write, give us justice. Speaker 9: 41:05 The song kind of wrote and spoke for itself because these things were fresh. And I was listening to a change is going to come as lyrics and realized that it was void of some of those social justice meanings to me because it was just a pretty song and it was on movies and all these things. But that first line I was born by the river in a little tent. Oh, just like a river I've been running ever since the idea that a river never stops running unless he drives up and in his life as a black man, he'd always been running or looking over his back or thinking he might be killed there. His economic choices were slam. If any, it just really felt, I felt the weight of it because I might not have been someone who was murdered, but it doesn't matter my social class or how my friends see me in a certain situation. I could have been any of the people who had lost their life to police brutality or just to brutality in general. And so it was real easy. Let's hear it is give us justice by these sacred souls Speaker 11: 42:00 Could have been me, could have been me. [inaudible] [inaudible] Justin [inaudible] could have been me. [inaudible] there's a shot gun fight and a shot gun smart. [inaudible] onto this justice onto this dress. Speaker 9: 44:25 That was the sacred souls performing give us justice. And I've been speaking with Alex Garcia Speaker 4: 44:32 And sail Samano and Josh lane, the three members of these sacred souls. If you want to hear the full interview and see the sacred souls music video four, can I call you Rose? You can go to kpbs.org/summer music series. I want to thank you guys so much for sitting down and talking to us and sharing the music with us. It's really been a pleasure. Speaker 10: 44:56 Thank you. Thank you for having us Speaker 4: 44:59 Next week or a summer music series continues with songwriter, Alfred Howard and artist Marianne Howard.